and all i need is next to me
by devon380black
Summary: "Just follow my lead." Scott smiles and nods enthusiastically. He doesn't say it, but it's nice to not be in charge for once. /* tumblr anon prompt: Scott trying to teach Lydia how to make pancakes but they end up having a food fight */ title from Mona Lisa by AAR
1. we don't need our bags, we could just le

The universe hates me, Scott muses.

On top of deadlines from overbearing teachers, renegade hunters, wolf pack dynamics, assassins and benefactors, he's just been paired with Lydia for their capstone project.

He misses his free time before being an Alpha in high school. Scratch that, before being a teen wolf in high school.

_Why did I think this was a good idea?_

_Being a teen wolf sucks._

Scott groans and hangs his head.

Kira meets him outside of class. She touches his shoulder to catch his attention and smiles coyly at him.

"Meet me after school?"

Scott smiles and says-

"Actually, he's going home with me", Lydia interrupts them.

"Right, Scott?", she arches a brow at him.

"Well...can't we meet sometime later, Lydia? I really need to-"

"Need to what? Have sex with our vixen?"

Scott blushes and he sees from the corner of his eye that Kira has hid behind her hands and the tips of her ears have turned red.

He's stammering a reply to Lydia but she shifts her attention to Kira and apologizes while reaching out for Scott's arm. She steers him slowly to their next class, her hand sure on his arm.

"Bye Kira", she waves as she pulls him along. Scott obediently following a step behind Lydia.

* * *

"Any ideas for our capstone project? Scott? Hello Scott?"

Lydia waves her hand in front of Scott's face and he blinks back into attention. He scratches the back of his head and grimaces.

"Uh...none as of the moment", he bites his lip.

Lydia sighs and waves her hand dismissively.

"Just follow my lead."

Scott smiles and nods enthusiastically. He doesn't say it, but it's nice to not be in charge for once.

"My last class ends at 3:30. I'll expect you to be waiting for me then", she calmly continues.

"Wait, what?"

Then she abruptly enters their classroom, leaving Scott stock still in the deserted hallway.

Distantly, Scott hears the second bell.

* * *

They've been at this for half the night (almost 3 hours but who's counting?). Scott's eyes are burning and his brain feels like it's melting in his skull. He turns his neck from side to side and hears the satisfying pop of his joints.

Lydia is still silently reading on his bed. She's sitting with her legs cross-legged, pieces of paper all around her, some with circles on it from where they saw something important that needed to be highlighted or they could use to get their point across.

Scott discreetly palms his phone and presses the power button. There's still no new messages and he's getting kind of worried. He sends a text to Derek.

A few minutes later, his phone vibrates with Derek's reply.

"Nothing new. I'm not supposed to be talking to you tonight. Lydia's orders"

Huh.

Scott reads it again. His eyes widening on the last bit.

He gulps.

He looks at Lydia and tries to see how she can make Derek follow her orders. And when he thinks about it, Lydia is pretty dangerous. He remembers wolfsbane-laced punch and hallucinations. Her birthday party. Lydia leaning close to him and saying that she didn't like losers. That party where she made him lose control.

He shakes his head to dispel these thoughts. And looks at Lydia again. He hasn't really spent a lot of time with Lydia but he knows he can trust her.

Scott returns to researching. But not without a final pondering look at Lydia.


	2. and all i need is next to me

The kitchen is a mess. Flour ends up everywhere, even the cupboards on top of the sink. The stovetop is splattered with pancake mix and the majority of the pancake batter is on Scott and Lydia themselves.

"SCOTT, ugh!"

Scott is covering his mouth, trying to stop his giggling but he can't help but let out a laugh at Lydia's murderous expression.

"This isn't funny, McCall. My clothes are ruined!", Lydia says as she looks down and tries to wipe off anything and everything on her clothes. It's entirely counterproductive because her hands are also covered in pancake batter.

Scott is full on laughing because Lydia is a little bit frightening in her rage but this is offset by her current situation which is clothes covered in flour, hair sticking at odd angles-her carefully styled hair (Scott knows it's carefully styled, he once accompanied his mom to the hair stylist and it was the longest hour of his 8 year old life...anyway, how did it escape bedhead?)- and there's pancake batter on her face too.

So all in all, Lydia's deadly glare is not really effective.

Scott takes a deep breath, actually several deep breaths to compose himself. Lydia has crossed her arms and is now looking expectantly at him.

Scott inclines his head to the side, holds out his hands in a placating gesture and says, "Look, you can take a bath and I'll put your clothes in the washing machine, okay?"

Lydia doesn't answer but just raises an eyebrow imperiously.

Scott tries again, "I'm sorry about the mess. But I can get them dry-cleaned if you want."

He'll manage to get them dry-cleaned even if it will seriously hurt his savings. _I'll find a way,_ he promises in his head. He's regretting throwing a handful of flour at her but he couldn't stop himself. The opportunity was there and Scott just couldn't let it go to waste.

_Lydia has had too many bad days_, he reasons to himself. An Alpha has to take care of his pack members.

[Besides, Lydia was frowning too often and needed to loosen up. But he's not going to say that if anyone asks him why he threw flour at Lydia Martin. Nope, mouth is zipped shut and locked and the key has been thrown away.]

Lydia purses her lips and prolongs the silence to watch Scott squirm and a worried expression to slowly appear on his face.

"Hmm..."

_Please don't be 'real' mad...just be annoyed...but not mad because it would defeat the purpose of all this_, he pleads to her in his head.

He stays silent and waits for her to speak.

"I hope you have clean towels at least."

And Scott smiles at that.

"Come on up. You can use my bathroom. I've got bath gels, bath salts, bath scrubs and new soap if you want. Also fresh towels and you can wear some of my old clothes for when we have to wait for your clothes to dry", Scott is aware he's babbling but he can't seem to stop himself. Lydia is, thankfully, not calling him out on his behavior.

* * *

Lydia inspects the small bathroom. It's not cluttered but there are a lot of stuff, mostly bathroom paraphernalia that Scott was rambling about on the way to his room.

There's a knock on the door before Scott tells her to leave her clothes in the hamper under the sink and that he'll just pick it up later and put it in the wash.

"I also brought fresh towels and something you can change into."

Lydia opens the door and Scott smiles at her while giving her the items (there's also a blow dryer-"It's my Mom's"-Scott hastily explains).

"I'm sorry about the-", he waves to her general appearance then turns around and starts to leave his room. She faintly hears him say that he'll be cleaning up the kitchen.

Lydia shuts the door and turns on the tap, holding out her hand to gauge the temperature of the water. A bath would be nice but she doesn't like the thought of swimming in a solution of pancake batter and bath oils. Yuck.

She takes off her clothes and places them in the hamper. She sniffs at the bottles of body wash that Scott gave her. Now why does Scott have so much bath stuff?

Lydia rolls her eyes at Scott's weirdness then gets under the shower. The water is hot and she spends a few minutes under it doing nothing, just letting the water drench her hair and body. Eventually, she feels the muscles on her shoulders relax. She slowly sighs.

Lydia reaches for a bottle. It's cinnamon scented and she lathers it in her hand and starts to clean herself. She's silent all through out. Too lost in her thoughts.

She had woken up curled around a pillow on Scott's bed, her notes and the books they brought still lying open around her. Scott was half on the floor, half on the bean bag. He was snoring softly.

Lydia had stretched her limbs and called out to Scott. He didn't wake up but continued to snore so Lydia got out of bed and approached him. She was calling out his name but he didn't even stir.

She reached out a hand and slowly poked his shoulder while saying his name.

"Scott... Wake up, Scott."

He mumbled in his sleep and tried to turn away from her. But Lydia was not having any of it and curled her hand on his shoulder instead and tried to shake him awake.

"Come on Scott McCall. Wake up. Wake up!"

At the last part of her sentence, he woke up with a start. His eyes confused and mouth gaping like a fish out of water.

"What...what are you doing in my room, Lydia?"

Then he looked around him. Really looked at the papers strewn everywhere, books open and pages flapping in the wind. Realization dawned on his face and he looked up apologetically at Lydia and said, "I'm sorry I fell asleep...but I can make you breakfast before we continue with our project".

Lydia had smiled at that, glad that Scott was focused on finishing their assignment. Supernatural problems could wait while academic problems were before them.

[She knows Scott is a werewolf and it had some responsibilities entailed. With great power comes great responsibility she says to herself like a mantra; yes, she saw the Spider-man movies and sometimes secretly reads them to distract herself from their lives and the upheaval the supernatural and not so supernatural beings to it. But hey, to each her own, right?]

Scott had stood up and stretched his arms above his head while closing his eyes. He yawned and motioned her to follow him to the kitchen.

As they made they way down the stairs, Scott had said, "I hope you like pancakes. I can make all kinds of pancakes. Maybe even some Mickey Mouse shapes."

Lydia had said nothing but followed Scott down the stairs and into the kitchen. She'd stayed silent, just thinking about the list from the benefactor and what they would have to do about it. Scott was talking to her but she had tuned him out.

It was all static to her.

The password was Allison.

Now who-

Splat.

Her face and hair were plastered with something sticky and sweet-smelling. It was also slimy and cold. Lydia shuddered.

She heard chuckling and raised her eyes to the only other person in the room.

Scott McCall who had pancake batter dripping from his hands. _The nerve!_

He wasn't even trying to hide what he did!

**UGH!**

"You did not just do that, SCOTT!"

"What do you mean, Lydia? I didn't do anything", he tried to say without breaking into a mischievous grin.

Lydia huffed and looked up and tried to count to five to stop from scolding Scott. She was not going to stoop down to his childish antics.

She closed her eyes and prayed for patience.

And was rewarded with a flour hitting her on the face and Scott's giggling.

Lydia gritted her teeth and launched herself at Scott. They wrestled with the bowl of pancake batter, making it spill on the floor and splash onto their clothes. Lydia had her eyes closed and all she could hear was Scott's gleeful laugh.

She managed to plunge her hand into the bowl and scoop some of the pancake batter.

"Haha!"

With her hand on Scott's shirt, she held a struggling Scott and successfully hit him on the side of his face, her hand making a loud splat as it hit his cheek.

"Don't mess with me, Scott", she squeezed his cheek in emphasis, her hand tracing his dimple. A victorious smirk on her face.

But then...

She should have expected him to do exactly what he did a moment later, which was...

He took hold of her waist, reeled her in, and brought his sticky pancake batter-covered face close to Lydia and rubbed his cheek over her own, making a further mess and spreading it all over their faces.

"Scott, ewww!"

She tried to get away but Scott held fast and only laughed at her struggles.

"Hahaha... Lydia, you look... you look like-"

He couldn't finish his sentence before doubling over and guffawing like he invented laughter.

Lydia looked around and saw the box of flour and acted on impulse.

And Scott found himself coughing flour. His face covered in white and finding a hard time opening his eyes.

He wiped his eyes and when he looked at Lydia, his irises were red. He grinned. His teeth looked a bit pointy or it might have just been a trick of the light, Lydia couldn't decide.

The rest after that was a blur of flour and pancake batter.


	3. you can sit beside me

"I know what you're doing, Scott."

"What am I doing?"

"This...", she gestures at him then at the whole room. It's not spotless, but it's clean enough. The only evidence of their morning "battle" are the discarded mixing bowl and measuring cups soaking in the sink.

"What am I doing?", Scott looks around with widened eyes. He tries to school his face into a blank.

"You're being you. Trying to cheer me up", she says to him levelly. _Always blunt and to the point._

Scott's innocent face is commendable, really. But the hope in his eyes leaks out and his resolve breaks and he says "Is it working?"

There's a small uplift in his mouth, like he's trying so hard not to smile.

Lydia looks down at her hands then back at Scott. She give a small nod. Almost imperceptible, but Scott's looking at her intently and he catches the gesture.

She's not all okay. They still have to deal with a lot of stuff. But she allows herself to feel safe and relax with Scott.

Just for a moment.

Scott slowly smiles. All toothy grin and beaming, like the sun breaking out of the clouds in a gloomy day. He visibly relaxes too, his shoulders no longer tense. And Lydia takes it all in.

"Yeah, it's working...", her eyes scrutinize him. From the top of his head to the tips of his feet, her eyes rove over his recently unclenched hands and the way he can't quite seem to hide the sigh that escapes him.

"...and Scott?"

"Yeah?"

"It works both ways"

Lydia makes sure to hold his gaze. Then she reaches out and places her hand on Scott's.

"You're not in this alone", she softly says. _Maybe he needs to hear this too._

She twines their fingers. Scott gently grips her hand.

"We can do this. And I'm not just talking about out project", she smiles at the last bit. An honest smile.

Scott nods back, a wordless thanks that Lydia understands.

They're standing in the recently cleaned kitchen. It's early morning on a weekend and they still have their project to combat along with actual supernatural/unknown stuff to literally combat.

But it's going to be okay.

They can do this together.


End file.
